Mom Writer’s Literary Magazine

 

This Monkey’s Gone to Heaven

by Robin Dutton-Cookston

 

It was time to shake the monkey that clutched my back. No, the monkey was not heroin. (Who do I look like, Sid Vicious?) The monkey wasn’t vodka or a gambling addiction or anything fun like that.

 

I needed to set free the monkey of sloth and laziness and poor physical fitness. So perhaps, technically, one could say I needed to shake the sloth off my back. Either way, something weighed heavily on my body. Something beyond those last few pounds of baby weight from my now 2-year-old. Sure, I got out and moved my body from time to time. I hiked. I ran around the city with my kids. I pretended to do yoga on the floor in front of the TV. But it wasn’t enough.

 

My general inactivity cast a spongy cloud across my overall health, my fitness, my stamina. Months of typical urban middle-class family stress and donut intake finally reached a breaking point. It was time to flush the pain from my joints and shake the rolls of jelly from my various curves and bulges that fit like a jigsaw puzzle into the contours of my sofa.

 

It was time to join a gym.

 

I joined the gym because this little package of flesh and muscle and bone and gut is all I’ve got and I damn well better take care of it like I did before I had kids.

   

I joined the gym because back in the day—back in the pre-kids day—I knew how to take care of my physical health which led to greater peace and harmony in the mental health department. I ate vegetarian. I flossed twice a day. I gleefully hurtled my pre-maternal mortal coil through a rigorous regimen of yoga and running that kept me strong and fit. And hot. Ask my husband. He agrees that my fine self probably contributed to the post-margarita happy hour conception of our oldest daughter.

 

I joined the gym because I don’t want to face yet another summer of skirted, girdled swimwear from Lands’ End, and abs that ache from getting up off the poolside recliner too quickly.

 

Me and the gym parted ways long before the advent of the holy iPod, and well before the invention of fancy microchips that remind me how many reps and sets I logged last time on the triceps machine. Within minutes of my initial reconciliation with the gym I realized that back in the prime of my fit days I may as well have used a medicine ball or some vibrating rubber band thing from a Laverne and Shirley episode. Things have evolved at the gym and there’s a lot for me to re-learn.

 

Now I find that I’m struggling to keep up with the retirees who share my mid-morning workout time. I must reduce the weights lifted by the 82-year-old who works in while I rest in-between my sets. I turn down the Pixies music on my iPhone so I can eavesdrop on septuagenarian conversations about good sources for Omega-3 and the best remedy for tender Achilles tendons. My birth-battle-scarred body amped up with my old lady 70s-80s workout mix leaves me sharing more in common with those retiree gymsters than with the 20-something Lady Gaga hardbodies who come in for spinning class.

 

I’ve also discovered that I apparently go about this showering business all wrong. My senior citizen gym pals not only cover all flesh with a three-inch layer of suds, but they scrape each square centimeter of epidermis for at least five minutes with a rectangular device that looks like a cross between a Brillo® epidermis pad and a cinder block. These ablutions leave their skin as red and raw as a shaved tomato, not that I’m looking. Maybe I’ll have time for such exfoliation on steroids once my kids are in college, but right now it’s lather, rinse, and throw on a crusty McKinley Elementary T-shirt over my wet back before running on to the next block of my day.

 

Senior citizen shower bonding aside, I’ve gained more than just sore glutes since I’ve gotten back together with the gym.

 

I find that working out resurrects a valuable subcomponent of my identity. I’m someone who exercises! I go to the YMCA and it’s gym-tastic!

 

I set a good example for my daughters. Mommy takes care of her body. Mommy is strong.  

 

But the best perk of my newfound gym-ness is a reawakening of gratitude. Taking time to care for my health and fitness reminds me to be thankful for who I am, how I am, and what I have. Because a funny thing happened on the way from the gym today.

 

I tore around the corner at Sloat Boulevard, in a hurry to get home and get to work before the mid-day frenzied haul of children began, only to come across a dazzling spectacle of pink pedestrian traffic. Hundreds of women in pink shirts, pink hats, pink bunny ears, and pink tiaras, paraded just feet in front of my car. Beautiful women of all ages, shapes, and sizes. One woman waved a giant pink banner that screamed “OPTIMIST” in giant white letters. I read on their shirts that they were part of a three-day walk for breast cancer research.

 

And something totally unexpected happened. I burst into tears.

 

It was a perfect storm. The brave, tired women in pink shirts. The pink flag. Earth, Wind and Fire singing, “You’re a shining star,” on the radio. A beautiful, sunny fall San Francisco day. The endorphin rush from my recent victory over the elliptical machine. A blast of air tore through my lungs and forced its way out my throat, causing me to gasp and sob out loud at the chattering mob before me. Not because I was sad. Because I was joyful and grateful.

 

I thanked the universe for my newfound attention to my physical well-being and ensuing emotional sanity, and for my current state of health. It was nice to be reminded that women are strong for reasons that transcend bicep curls. I was proud of my sisters for taking time out of their lives to march for a cure and for taking care of themselves too. The tears flowed and I was grateful for it all.  I’m off the sofa and the monkey is off my back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robin Dutton-Cookston has written for Mothering, Hip Mama, Clamor, and many other fantastic Web sites and zines. She self-publishes a zine called Apron Strings and blogs at www.thefoggiestidea.wordpress.com. Her book, The Foggiest Idea: Tales of a Displaced Texan in San Francisco Mamaland was published in 2008. In addition to her creative pursuits, Robin works for San Francisco’s official Web site for families, www.SFkids.org. When she’s not writing, Robin likes to chase her family through the streets of San Francisco.